


The Fairy Queen

by zebaoth



Series: Rigelian Portraits [5]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 18:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12636726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zebaoth/pseuds/zebaoth
Summary: Show not thy true face.





	The Fairy Queen

The winter masquerade came in with a storm of sharp black ice, yet the warmth of bodies gathered like matchsticks stacked side by side in the grand ballroom filled the air with an unseasonable haze, as if one had been snatched off to fairyland, made to dance until succumbing to death. After all, there were no windows in the ballroom. No need to look upon the world outside.

Rinea was dressed as the snow queen, in a white gown trimmed with ermine, and a silver mask that glittered in the light of the chandeliers. Rinea did quite love covering her face. It was something of a talent of hers.

She would have greatly preferred to have spent the evening sitting in a corner, admiring the beauty and grace of the courtly women, but the duties of a princess were great. She could not pass the time as she had in her youth.

_Youth? Strange, that I should still call myself a youth, had I been free. Is 18 years enough to make an old maid, in times of war?_

____

____

_____ _

_____ _

She buried it.

She had charmed her way through the night so splendidly, with any range of demure and flattering small talk with old, dull, and important men, but the next name on her dance card was the one she had dreaded most of all. Strange, to think that he had still been in Zofia at the time of last year’s ball; his presence felt so oppressively eternal. 

When Fernand’s turn came, the orchestra played a shrill and spritely waltz. “Ghastly weather, you have here,” he said. He wore a cape of forest green, and a mask sewn with intricate silken leaves. Rinea noted that it did well to conceal his receding hairline.

“The people of Rigel are strong,” she said. “One can get used to anything, with a little fortitude.”

Fernand tread upon her foot. “Dreadfully sorry,” he said with a reproachful grin.

“No matter, Your Grace,” she said. “Accidents happen.”

“That’s a dear,” said Fernand. “Forgiveness is divine, as they say. Or I suppose, as we _used _to say, in Zofia.”__

____

____

“Your Grace is wise,” said Rinea.

“And how is your fiancé, may I ask?” said Fernand, loud enough that the other dancers might hear. “His Royal Highness is absent tonight.”

“He’s taken to an illness,” she said. It was as the two of them both knew: he was sleeping off a tantrum in his chambers, brooding and sulking like an overgrown child.

“Oh, is that so?” said Fernand. “Nothing serious, I should hope. Though, he’s a resilient man. When one is strong, one finds it very easy to _get over _things.” Fernand stomped upon her foot again, the same one as before, this time hard enough to tear through her fine stockings.__

____

____

“My, that was clumsy of me,” he said. “Do forgive me.”

“I could never hold it against Your Grace,” said Rinea steadily. “Not when no harm was intended.”

Fernand was leading them to the edge of the ballroom, past the orchestra. The passing faces swirled about in waves of fabric and intoxicating air, a blur of grinning fiends.

Rinea took a steadying breath.

Suddenly, the music stopped. There was a smattering of polite applause and laughter.

“If you please, milord,” she said. “I’m feeling rather faint. The air in here is so rich, for such a frail young thing.”

“Naturally,” muttered Fernand, eyes scanning the crowd.

“The servants entrance,” she prompted. “It leads into the corridor.”

“Very well,” he said. He led her by the arm to the door, which was little more than a panel sliding out of the wall.

The passage behind the ballroom servant’s entrance led to the kitchen, but at this time, was deserted, so late in the evening. The air was frigid, lit by fatty candles dripping with streams of hot black smoke.

Fernand blinked against the sudden darkness, taking off his mask to adjust it, but Rinea could not afford to waste time.

“I assure you, Your Grace, whatever threat you may believe I pose to you is of no consequence.”

Fernand paused in the middle of reaffixing his mask. “Beg pardon?” he said, amused.

“I should not wish for there to be a misunderstanding between us,” she said. “Though it may be hard to avoid, even still. It took me years to understand Lord Berkut’s interest in me, though you have had only one, in our company.”

She smiled. “His Highness is so kind to me. Wouldn’t you agree?” she said. She glanced backwards at the servant’s entrance door, carefully and firmly shut, though flimsy enough that the chatter drifted out upon them from within. “When there are eyes around to see.”

She turned back to face Fernand, briskly, and free of sentimentality. “In private, of course, it’s another matter; though, naturally, I can forgive Your Grace this ignorance. You may not know it, but His Highness doesn’t much care for my idle company. And as for any such dalliances of the flesh?” Rinea scoffed. Fernand was taken aback; Rinea had never seemed the sort to be capable of such a thing as a _scoff. ___

____

____

She continued. “Although at the start of our engagement I may have been in dread of it, I am since quite sure such things His Highness would never dream of enacting upon me.”

She looked Fernand in the eye. “Tell me, Your Grace,” she said. “Has he ever fucked you?”

Fernand felt as if the warmth had been stolen from his blood.

“Beg pardon?” he managed to croak.

“A yes or no will suffice, Your Grace. Though it was merely rhetorical, in its right, as I already know the answer."

Fernand had had words prepared to say, as he always did, and yet he found that he could not speak. In a few short minutes, Rinea had spoken more to him than she had in the entire year he had known her. Could this really be her? Had she been stolen away and been replaced by some warped and twisted changeling?

“Don’t make the mistake of assuming we two are vying for the same prize when we’ve not even been playing the same game,” she said. “And what a jolly game it is, isn’t it! For it _is _a game, is it not? The biding of one’s time, the tight rope over the snake pit. To get into His Highness’s good graces before he becomes of age. To slither into his bed like a worm, to prey on that foolish bravado. I should almost feel sorry for him, if he hadn’t been the basest sort of scoundrel. But of course, no one could accuse Your Grace of impropriety, for the _divinity _of Your Grace’s patience. How fortunate, that a war is such a drudgery, that time should lend Your Grace her aid in the making of men. Tell me, milord. Did you have any back home in Zofia? How many? How young?”____

__

__

____

____

Fernand’s hand flew back on its own as if to strike her, but hovered, frozen over his shoulder, when Rinea did not flinch.

“By all means, Your Grace,” she said. “Get in a good one. You wouldn’t be the first.”

Fernand’s hand trembled.

“If Your Grace will excuse me,” she said with a prim curtsey, and slipped back into the ballroom.

Fernand’s hand was a loose fist at his side as her voice drifted out into the corridor.

“Oh, it was no trouble, milady. I was merely feeling lightheaded. You know I’m of a delicate constitution. Lord Fernand was kind enough to take me out for some air. He’s a perfect gentleman, if ever one did live.”

**Author's Note:**

> i think i finally understand the "i do it to cope" discourse. it's not about being allowed to romanticize things. why would i want to do that? it's about frank and open evaluation.
> 
> anyway.
> 
> i think this is the last one. it's out of my system, for now. i don't want to do this anymore.


End file.
